Man in the Middle
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Movie Reviews of Man in the Middle
Movie Review: A pretty good military drama with a good story
Summary: 3 Stars
Some of this movie may have been the basis for the film A Few Good Men. Robert Mitchum is a lieutenant colonel flown from Europe to India to be the defense attorney for an American lieutenant who murdered a British sergeant. He hasn't practiced any law for over 16 years and his primary defense witness, a doctor of phychiatry, has been transferred and his damaging report on the defendent suppressed by his superiors. The defendent is played by Keenan Wynn. The more his attorney speaks with him and others who knew him, the more convinced Mitchum becomes that the trial will not be fair and his defendant will be found guilty instead of insane. The rush to hang him is the excuse used to reduce tension between the British and American armies stationed in India.
The love interest for Mitchum is a nurse at the hospital played by France Nuyen. She becomes attracted to Mitchum and eventually they have a romance. But some of the scenes between them feel contrived. As she hugs him in one scene and when he is about to leave again at the end of the film she has no tears for him even though she tries.
At times the music is a little to melodramatic and does not really fit the scene. It is intended to dramatize a particular scene but is overdone. And of course there is the curstomary marching military band and patriotic music used in the film at some point.
The courtroom drama is pretty good, but the prosecuting attorney allows the defense attorney a lot of leeway to challenge its witnesses without any objections. The courtroom scenes in the Cane Mutiny are far better. The ending to this film leaves the audiance to speculate on whether the defendent is found guilty as the outcome of the trial is not shown or discussed.
Overall this is a pretty good film, but not a great film. The Cane Mutiny and A Few Good Men are still better films about flawed characters and military justice.
Movie Review: Man in the Middle of a Mediocre Script
Summary: 3 Stars
From the opening credits, "Man in the Middle" had all the appearance of a mojor production. The televized version I saw was even in the full screen mode. The sets, the location and, to a lesser extent, the actors seemed to suggest that this was one of the studio's higher budgetted projects for the year. As it turned out, the direction was far superior to the script and the end result was much ado about nothing. "Man in the Middle" struck me as an unashamed attempt to recreat "The Caine Muitiny". Although I have great respect for Robert Mitchum (his presence in the cast was the sole reason I watched this movie), he was no Jose Ferrer and Keenan Wynn (who would probably be the first to agree) was no Humphrey Bogart.
I recognize that war movies take liberties with romantic entanglements. The concept of "there may be no tomorrow" cuts through a lot of preliminaries. However, the relationship between Robert Mitchum and Frances Ngyuen lacked any kind of structure.
The film tried to create a suspense but, having created it, it made it all unnecessary in the first place in the manner the problem was resolved. This high budget film should have spent more on a better script.
Movie Review: Very disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
I have always been a fan of Robert Mitchum and have never seen him in a bad picture; until now. "The Enemy Below" and "Heaven Knows Mister Allison" rank amongst my favorite all time movies. When I saw the supporting cast I was sure it must be a very good film. It isn't. The direction is terrible.
In the first part of the film it is difficult to tell whether Mitchum is dedicated to providing the best defense that he can or just protecting his career by "going through the motions". I would guess that it was intended that this be portrayed as an inner conflict for Mitchum's character, but it doesn't come off.
The senior officers are so open about their zeal to get Keenan Wynn convicted that they make very little attempt to conceal it and speak openly before the trial about getting him convicted and hanged in order to mend fences between the Americans and British. It is too transparent to be believable. If the objective was to portray the military as callous and only interested in protecting itself and looking at the "big picture" in favor of justice, then this film went overboard.
The relationship between Mitchum and France Nuyen goes from hot to cold and back so many times, so quickly and with so little motivation as to be laughable. One minute she is chasing after him with school girl eyes and the next she detests him. He shows up at her house and is greeted with all the enthusiasm of a leper and within minutes is being asked to stay the night.
Keenan Wynn's breakdown at the end of the trial, where he cries like a baby, is completely out of character with the rest of his portrayal.
The music is totally inappropriate for the mood of the movie. It sounds as if it were written for a cavalry epic and is noticeably incongruous.
The story had great potential and with a cast including Trevor Howard, Barry Sullivan, and Keenan Wynn only a truly bad director could have ruined it. All-in-all the film was an utter disappointment and I would not recommend it.
Movie Review: Hollywood at its most turgid...
Summary: 1 Stars
It starts out with a fairly interesting premise: even an insane bigot deserves a fair trial. Along the way we're supposed to loathe both the nut-case defendant and the military men who, for some mysterious reason (we never discover it) are trying to hang the guy fast-and-get-it-over-with (something about him embarrassing Our Cause). Whatever. Total bloviation (not a dictionary word, but you get the point). Mitchum looks like he's about to burp up his dinner. He was not at his best here. That wig or whatever thing was sitting on his head, makes him look like a fifty-year old "boy." France Nyen was wasted as an ineffectual, idealistic witness to the injustice going on, and drawn romantically to the bilious, over-the-hill MItchum (why?) The only amusing characters were the two legal flunkies Mitchum keeps telling to "shut up." There's some kind of jokey thing going on to keep them in their place when they seem to be the only ones who truly want justice (aside from Ms. Nyen, of course, but she's so boring it doesn't matter). And then you have the "secondary" racism and sexism, on the part of Mitchum, no less, who is supposed to be a late-blooming champion of civil rights. "Still taking laundry?" he quips, as he drops in on Nuyen, described as "French-Chinese" (get it? Chinese = laundry) and calling her "honey" every time she tries to be anything more than decorative. I mean, this movie doesn't know what it wants to be, and in the VERY, VERY long run is a turgid mish-mash of bloviated bologna. I sat through the whole stupid thing and the only way I can justify the waste of time is to get it out of my hair by writing something funny about it. I'm going to bed. If I dream about Robert Mitchum chasing his hair through a muddy ditch in Far India, I'm suing Twentieth Century Fox.
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